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South Jersey retailers capitalize on e-cigarette craze

Steve Wood, Courier-Post
8:19 a.m. EDT July 2, 2014

Ryan Bunting is the owner of e-Volution Vapors, and is an advocate for e-cigarettes. These bottles contain some of the many flavors available at his shop. He testified before a legislative committee against a 75 percent tax on e-cigarettes. May 22, 2014.
(Photo:
Courier News file photo
)

Smoking once controlled Mike Moran’s life. Now the Cherry Hill resident is taking control.

Two years after kicking his 26-year smoking habit, the former firefighter owns Firehouse E-Cigs & Vapors in Cherry Hill, one of many area vaping lounges to open this year.

Despite being an estimated $2 billion industry with millions of users, e-cigarettes are largely misunderstood by the public, Moran claims.

No smoke. No tobacco. No butts about it.

“The first week we opened, we had about 10 to 15 people in the store, a lot of people trying things, and the door was open,” Moran says.

“A woman stopped, stuck in her head in and asked if we sold perfume.”

Her mistake may be more understandable once you see — and smell — the vape shop.

Since April, the store has invited adults to lounge in its chairs, watch its TVs and sample from 110 bottles of flavorful e-liquids, the nicotine solutions that range from fruity to otherworldly and that ex-smokers swear by.

“A lot of people don’t know, but more and more people know each day,” Moran notes.

The popularity of e-cigarettes wasn’t lost on Gov. Chris Christie, whose proposal to tax them at the same rate as conventional cigarettes — $2.70 a pack — in the 2015 state budget was defeated Thursday.

The tax change figured to generate about $35 million in annual state revenue by raising the price of a 30-milliliter e-liquid — or juice — from $20 to $30 to about $100.

Such a markup likely would have driven many recent brick-and-mortar lounges out of business, as well as leading “vapers” back to traditional cigarettes, says Moran’s wife, Malia.

“A lot of my friends are uninformed or they don’t care, but everybody knows somebody who struggled with smoking at some point,” she adds.

“I think as a society, if we don’t support these things, we’re making a huge mistake.”

Taking a real hit

The impact of tobacco use is far more costly than any tax, with an estimated 11,201 deaths in New Jersey each year and a cost to the state of $5.6 billion in health care, according to the American Lung Association.

E-cigs claim to mimic the feeling of smoking, minus the tar, ash, tobacco and most of its toxins.

“It’s about taking the fire out of smoking,” says Mike Moran, who spent 18 years working in marketing for pharmaceutical companies.

“When you look at the science of smoking, most of the carcinogens are generated through the burning process. That’s why electronic cigarettes have presented such a viable option.”

Not everywhere, though. Vaping is banned in nearly a dozen countries and the World Health Organization has “strongly advised” against it.

“The potential risks they pose for the health of users remain undetermined,” WHO states in guidelines on its website.

Like the ALA, Dr. Laura Picciano does not endorse the largely unregulated market of e-cigs.

“There has to be a lot more regulation and investigation in general before we can advocate any of these newer e-cigs,” says Picciano, who treats nicotine addiction and the issues of long-term smoking at the Ripa Center for Women’s Health & Wellness in Voorhees.

One common chemical in e-liquids, propylene glycol, has been the subject of scrutiny, despite its presence in asthma inhalers, makeup and pharmaceuticals.

In 2010, New Jersey was the first state to ban the use of e-cigarettes in most public places and workplaces. Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter passed a bill that banned their public use effective Tuesday.

But Moran knows how hard it is to quit the real thing.

“I used every pharmaceutical product,” he recalls. “I did hypnosis, acupuncture. I did cold turkey. I tried the gums. I tried the mints.

“I tried everything to quit smoking.”

Moran believes e-cigarettes are unfairly scrutinized.

“I worked on a number of drugs that carried far worse side-effect profiles than this,” he says of his time in the pharmaceutical industry.

Chantix (the brand name of varenicline) is among seven medications approved by the Food and Drug Administration for smoking cessation, along with Zyban, over-the-counter nicotine patches, nicotine gum and lozenges and prescription nasal sprays and inhalers.

Quitting time

Moran’s motivation to quit was twofold. His father smoked, and Malia lost her mother to lung disease.

“Not to mention the things you put up with as a smoker are not fun,” adds Moran. “... I walked around with dryer sheets in my front pockets, bottles of Febreze in my car to cover up the smell.”

In 14 years of trying to quit, Moran found the most effective option to be cold turkey; he lasted five months without a smoke.

But in his quest to quit, Moran discovered not all e-cigarettes are the answer.

“I’ve bought a lot of crap,” he admits.

Moran started with disposables such as Blu, the leading e-cig brand owned by Newport manufacturer Lorillard. A so-called cigalite nearly blew up in his face during a trip to Florida.

“It was essentially burning up in my mouth,” he recalls.

Moran took his faulty cigalite to a vapor store, only to learn of an e-cig (the Kanger EVOD) with tastier e-liquids with various nicotine levels.

“It’s changed our lives. Like, he doesn’t smell,” Malia says with a laugh. “He would leave me every hour and now we can sit and enjoy dinner.”

Moran brought others to the e-cig light, starting with his high school friend and smoker Cliff Orem. Except Orem resisted quitting.

“I didn’t think it was going to work,” he admits. “And to be honest with you, I didn’t want to stop smoking.”

Orem relented when Moran bought him a Kanger EVOD and he reduced his pack-and-a-half daily intake to five cigarettes the first day.

Three weeks in, Orem put out cigarettes for good. He’s now a managing partner at Firehouse.

Al Mindel’s 30-year addiction went up in smoke with a single puff of an advanced e-cig.

“It was an instant switch, like that,” he says, snapping his fingers. “You get to keep the nicotine that your body is accustomed to and you get to keep the habit you’re used to for so long.”

Eights months later, Mindel had lowered his nicotine dependence from 24 milligrams per milliliter of e-liquid to 6 milligrams and opened Greatest Vapes, a venture that followed stores dedicated to jewelry, cellphones and men’s clothing.

“With Walmart, it’s very hard to find a niche business,” Mindel notes. “... This is one of them.”

Good vibes

People simply need a place to come together, blow steam and share stories, Moran says.

“When you have a group of people and you can say, ‘How long for you?’ ‘How long for you?’ it is a community,” he adds. “And I think it’s important for people to tell their stories and share, and that’s why the store is here.”

The power of e-cigarettes is written on the wall: Firehouse customers can announce on a chalkboard the day they divorced cigarettes, under the hashtag ­#IMPROOF.

“I would’ve never thought running a retail store would be as rewarding as it is,” Moran declares. “But when you have somebody walk through the door, shake your hand and say, ‘I’m signing the board today,’ it’s a very personally gratifying (experience).”

The good vapes have gone viral. While stationed with the Navy in Virginia Beach, Andrew Aurelio heard a few vaping lounges had opened in his Cherry Hill hometown.

“I like to check out every vape shop I can,” he says.

The 24-year-old has toured several area vapor lounges while on leave, including Firehouse, Greatest Vapes, Popie’s Vapor Lounge in Marlton and Mode E Cigarettes & Vapor Lounge in Blackwood.

On a break from working on FA2 fighter jets, Aurelio had noticed his friend exhaling plumes of vapor — and he wasn’t blowing smoke.

“I was like, ‘What the heck is that? That’s pretty cool,’ ” Aurelio recalls. “So I asked him if I could hit it, and instead of getting that smoke on your fingers, all I tasted was flavor. And that was all it was, and it got me hooked.”

Aurelio bought his e-cig the same day. Within eight months, he’s lowered his nicotine intake to 6 milligrams and improved both his smell and stamina. Aurelio has run the 1.5-mile portion of his Physical Readiness Test in 9 minutes 25 seconds, compared with a previous time of 12 minutes.

“(I’m) not feeling like I’m going to die every time I run. That’s what it felt like after smoking two packs a day.”

Fuming

Aurelio may be addicted to vaping lounges though, visiting Firehouse “about nine, 10 times since I’ve been home.”

“You go to a vape shop, and you just want to hang out and talk.”

In addition to stories, Aurelio likes to swap e-liquid flavors, from orange guava to watermelon.

Because the sale of vapor products is not strongly regulated, ingredients vary significantly among manufacturers. The FDA found carcinogens in some liquids.

In a 2013 report that reviewed more than 9,000 e-liquids, Drexel University professor Igor Burstyn determined “the exposures from using e-cigarettes fall well below the threshold for concern for compounds with known toxicity.”

Moran says e-liquids improve every day.

“A couple years ago, the liquids that were in this market stunk,” he claims. “Frankly, a lot of them tasted like chemicals.

“Now we have chefs dedicated to building the best flavors they can and the best quality they can.

Adds Moran: “Once you realize there’s something else that satisfies you, you go, ‘Wait a minute, I might be able to beat this.’

“Realistically, I quit on watermelon.”

Reach Steve Wood at (856) 486-2474 or stewood@courierpostonline.com. Follow him on Twitter @CP_SteveWood.